The Rowling Library Magazine - July 2021
BY OLIVER HORTON
FINDING THE GOOD IN THE CURSED CHILD
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child announced its return to the theatres. Oliver goes about the bright side of the controversial eight story.
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characterization of the schoolage characters. Albus Severus Potter struggles to live up to his father’s fame, to live up to his own name. Scorpius is likewise in the shadow of his notorious dad, Draco Malfoy. Scorpius is arguably the best character in the story, funny and tenacious. The boys’ relationship is symbiotic and charming. “Friends?” “Always.” They are both in House Slytherin, which goes some way to repairing Slytherin’s reputation as the horrid House. Meanwhile, Harry’s eldest son James is a cheeky replica of his namesake grandfather, with a hint of Fred and George. James is the heir, Albus the spare. Kill the spare! Hermione and Ron’s daughter Rose is academic, sporty and dynamic. “I have no idea where she gets her ambition from,” deadpans Ron. The upwardly-mobile Hermione Granger is now Minister for Magic.
any Harry Potter fans hate The Cursed Child. The time-hopping tale was not written by J.K. Rowling and exists primarily to put magic on the stage before your very eyes. Marketing The Cursed Child as the next installment in Harry’s story stretched the truth. But the play’s flaws have been aired loudly and often. Let’s look instead at what The Cursed Child does well. The play has three protagonists: 40-year-old Harry Potter, his youngest son Albus and Albus’s best friend Scorpius. The story begins in “19 Years Later”, the epilogue to Deathly Hallows, then fast-forwards a couple of years and, via a prototype Time Turner, returns to events in Goblet of Fire. Reality shifts as the play asks, what if Harry & Co. had failed? The most immediate win is the
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